According to Wal-Mart, the fixed interbank commission violated
antitrust law, and in the 9 years the card issuers made more than
$350 billion, partly at the expense of retailers and customers.

"The anticompetitive conduct of Visa and the banks forced
Wal-Mart to raise retail prices paid by its customers and/or
reduce retail services provided to its customers as a means of
offsetting some of the artificially inflated interchange
fees," as Reuters cites the Wal-Mart court documents.

"As a result, Wal-Mart's retail sales were below what they
would have been otherwise."

Wal-Mart refused to answer whether the claim against MasterCard
will be also submitted, having emphasized that the company
doesn't discuss its legal plans publicly.

Visa refused to comment.

Wal-Mart's complaint against Visa states its customers had to
overpay on average 2 percent of the purchase price.

In December 2013 in a judicial settlement between VISA and 19
retailers an agreement was reached for the payment system to pay
$7.25 billion compensation. However Visa only paid $5.7 billion
after some complainants withdrew their claims.

In a separate move, Russia is going to create its own card system to rival Visa and
MasterCard that currently control above 85 percent of all card
transactions in the country. On Thursday President Putin said Russia should have its own national payment
system, with Sberbank promising to launch its PRO 100 payment
system within months. Talks to speed up the development of
Russia’s national payment system started after Visa and
MasterCard temporarily blocked operations with some Russian banks
last week.